Derry to consolidate information tech department

DERRY - The town plans to consolidate its information technology department, with three employees working out of the Derry Municipal Center.

The proposed IT budget for fiscal year 2014 paves the way for the consolidation, moving police department network administrator Sean Fichera to the municipal IT department. Fichera has worked for the police department since 2007.

"The directive the previous Town Council shared with me seemed to make sense to combine our IT services into one department," said Town Administrator John Anderson. "The police department had a dedicated individual, and (now) we're going to have three people in our IT department that serves all 234 employees in the town of Derry."

The town's IT department will continue to to support the police and fire departments from the municipal center, said Anderson.

The Town Council approved the overall IT department budget of $643,912.

Some of the other major items in the budget include a mapping update for the town's geographic information system and updates to the server room in the municipal center, according to town IT/GIS manager Doug Rathburn.

The last map update was completed in 2008, said Rathburn.

He said the time span was far too long to not do a flyover to map the town for the GIS update and that the goal was to try to do it every five years.

"If we do the flyover, it will be in the spring of 2014, and that will put it at six years," he said, adding that there have been many areas of town that have changed since 2008 that will need to be looked at and updated.

Rathburn also included $17,000 for a dry fire suppression system in the server room at the municipal center. Anderson noted that there is currently a wet suppression system in the server room, which is not optimal for getting the town systems back up and running quickly if there is an incident.

"Everywhere I've ever been, they've had a dry system in the server room," said Anderson. "Yes, we have insurance, but it's the inconvenience factor of how many days we will be out if we put that system in there wet."

Rathburn noted that the town has more than $120,000 of equipment in the server room.